[CW] Recollections of W1BB Stew Perry of Winthrop, MA

[Darrel]

I've never really been into collecting QSL cards, but there is one card 
I'm proud of receiving above all else.  In 1965 I worked W1BB on 160m 
across the pond, from the UK.  I was running the maximum power permitted 
in the UK at the time, 10 watts DC power input to the PA of the homemade 
tx, or about 6 watts RF out from the transmitter.  My report from Stew 
was 339/449, but you can't believe how excited I was to receive that.

Cheers,

         Darrel, g3sys & aa7fv.


On 4/1/2021 11:24 AM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
> Stew Perry, W1BB was a good friend of mine, he lived in Winthrop, MA 
> which is near Logan Airport (BOS).
> He was a radio officer in the 1920s and then he graduated from 
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA and was a 
> outside salesman for Greybar Electric in Boston. He had his home in 
> Winthrop with it's 40 foot vertical, his two element phased inverted 
> vees at Deer Island Sewerage Treatment Plant in town,
> and during the summer, he went to him farm up in Maine as W1BB/1. I 
> guess at the time the Deer Island location was W1BB/1 also due to FCC 
> regulations operating away from his home.
> The 160M DXers gave Stew a book around 1977, we presented it to him at 
> "The Ship" restaurant in Lynfield, MA. Sadly this landmark is going 
> away along with the Hilltop Steak House cows.
> He was very pleased to get it. It was like a FOC meeting with W1HZ, 
> W1HX, W1PL, N1EA, W1BB (all FOC members) and the W4 fellow who bound 
> the letters - about 500 of them - into a book. My father WA1DRR and 
> mother also were there because they loved "The Ship" - it had great fish.
> In the late 1980s he was confined to nursing home care in
> Melrose, MA the same city where I lived at that time and I used to 
> visit him.
> He had throat cancer, lost his voice box, so he used a throat buzzer 
> which was very difficult to understand. He also had had a stroke.
> I brought my McElroy 1939 bug to the nursing home and he had great 
> difficulty using it. The coordination just wasn't there. I also 
> brought my EK-430 keyer and used it's loud sidetone to fill the room.
> But suddenly, he tried something different.
> DE W1BB W1BB W1BB
> Squeals of delight came from him - and myself too, for that matter.
> He could "talk" again.
> I went to sea and came home and would visit him, but my last trip 
> around 1990 was too long to see W1BB again, he died in March of that 
> year, before I came home in June 1990.
> But I'm sure that moment that his "voice" came alive pleased him, he 
> told me so.
> I also got him smiling, I told him the story of the seaman who wanted 
> nothing more to do with the sea.
> I told him the seaman put an oar over his shoulder and walked inland, 
> and kept going.
> For hundreds of miles people would ask: "Hey, mister, what are you 
> doing with an oar over your shoulder?" He kept on walking.
> Finally about 700 miles from the shore, he got a new question: "Hey, 
> mister, what's that funny looking thing you have over your shoulder?"
> He went into town bought himself a lot of land and built himself his 
> retirement home.
> He was never bothered with stories that start "This is no s4!t" anymore.
> But the fairytales, they were a different thing, every day at four 
> thirty, a group of fathers and mothers came to his front porch and 
> he'd tell them the most interesting stories about all sorts of things. 
> Just no sea stories.
> BV OM Stu I miss your wonderful fist. Old signals never die,they only 
> fade away. = 73 de DR
> Photos of Stu, W1BB, his antenna put up with the Town's permission at 
> Deer Island on the water tower just a half mile from his home, and a 
> picture of the restaurant where the bunch of us gave him a hand bound 
> book of all the 160 meter operators - it must have had 600 signatures 
> and messages. He was delighted!
> Pictures of Stew's
> Photos of Stu, W1BB, his SOWP QSL card, his antenna put up with the 
> Town's permission at Deer Island on the water tower just a half mile 
> from his home, and a picture of the restaurant where the bunch of us 
> gave him a hand bound book of all the 160 meter operators - it must 
> have had 600 signatures and messages. He was delighted!
> 73
> DR
>
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> =30=
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